Governance Thematic Portal: News
ENTRI Releases COP Decision Search Tool
Date: November 2007
Responding to the need for tracking the many decision documents approved by the Parties to environmental treaties, the Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center (SEDAC) has produced a Conference of Party (COP) Decision Search Tool as an add-on to its Environmental Treaties and Resource Indicators (ENTRI) project. The search tool is powered by a Google appliance, and includes controlled “metadata” (coding of each decision document) to enable powerful advanced searches by date, COP number, or title of document. All decision documents are harvested and converted to PDF for consistency, but for reference purposes the original URL is listed. The tool currently includes decision documents from the first to the most recent COPs for ten agreements: Basel (transboundary wastes), CBD, CITES, CMS, FCCC, Kyoto Protocol, Montreal Protocol, Ramsar, UNCCD, and Vienna (ozone). Users can search across all ten or limit the search to subsets.
Web site | Article
SCOPE Releases Report on Dialogue between Science and Society
Date: December 2006
The Scientific Committee on Problems of the Environment (SCOPE) has released a report entitled “How to Improve the Dialogue Between Science and Society: The Case of Global Environmental Change.”
Multilevel Governance of Global Environmental Change Published by Cambridge University Press
Date: March 2006
This collection, published by Cambridge University Press, is the outcome of an interdisciplinary research project involving scholars in the fields of international and comparative environmental law, the sociology and politics of global governance, and the scientific study of global climate change. Earth system analysis as developed by the natural sciences is transferred to the analysis of institutions of global environmental change. Rather than one overarching supranational organization, a system of “multilevel” institutions is advocated.
“Would a UN Environment Organization Help to Achieve the Millennium Development Goals?”
Date: 2006
In this article, Dr. Nils Meyer-Ohlendorf, Ecologic Senior Fellow, discusses the need for international environmental governance reform, the advantages and disadvantages of creating a United Nations Environment Organization (UNEO), and its potential in helping to achieve the Millennium Development Goals. The article concludes that a UNEO—as a United Nations specialized agency—may have greater political clout than the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) currently commands, which is only a programme based on a resolution of the General Assembly. Given its increased political weight, a UNEO could be a better tool to address environmental needs in developing countries, and help to achieve poverty and development goals.
